The Post, February 2019

VO LU M E X X I V, N U M B E R 6 | FEB RUA RY 2019 A monthly publication of The Post Oak School B O O K FA I R O R D E R F O R M S • H I G H S C H O O L J -T E R M

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THE POST

Grand p w e l c o a re nt s me!

POPA

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COFFEE | WOR K Day

Wed., Mar. 6, 8:45–noon PHOTO BY KABOOMPICS .C OM FROM PEXELS

PARENTS, GRANDPARENTS, & FRIENDS ARE ALL INVITED! Hosted by our POPA Chairs, this is a great way to meet other Post Oak parents and friends while helping our teachers accomplish a variety of easyto-do projects for their classroom.

These gatherings generally fall on the first Wednesday of each month at the Bissonnet Campus. Please join as often as you can!

Storytime with Cory Wed., Feb. 20 at 2:30 p.m. for parents and their children in YCC & Half-Day Primary

On the Cover

2018–2019 Post Oak Board of Trustees Sebha Ali Erin Busby Raj Chelapurath Rick Evans Blair Garrou Vean Gregg, treasurer Gregory Han, secretary Maura Joyce, president Mark Martin Bert Mellinger Jaana Porra Jennifer Rochlis Manolo Sanchez, chair Rona Sonabend Rochelle Tafolla Whitney Walsh Alison Wong

Trustees Emeriti Melissa Coleman Adam Forman Melanie Gray Bob Harvey Lloyd Kirchner Pat Mitchell Alan Ying

Primary Home Environment students celebrated the Lunar New Year—the year of the pig—with a parade through the Bissonnet Campus.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates, photos, and more: www.facebook.com/ postoakschool and postoakhighschool

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twitter.com/postoakschool

FEB RUA RY 2019

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Dr. Montessori Speaks

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n occasion, I like to hand my head of school Post article over to someone else, whose words may resonate with all of you. Over the winter break, I re-read some parts of my Montessori books—ones I have had since 1990 when I underwent teacher training. The binding is frayed on many of them, pages dog-eared and print fading, but the words inside continue to be a treasure. As I listen to news today, I am drawn to the following passage in her book Education for a New World. Maria Montessori lived through two world wars and was indeed looking for a “new world.” I sometimes feel that way.

Montessori found hope for that “new world” in her observations and work with children, and I see it every day at Post Oak. Dr. Montessori was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice for her work. She was uncomfortable with any accolades, and wrote: If education is to be reformed, it must be based upon the children. No longer is it enough to study great educators of the past…I protest against myself being hailed as the great educator of this century, because what I have done is merely study the child, to take and

express what he has given me…At the most I have been the child’s interpreter.

(Maria Montessori, Education for a New World) This interpretation she saw as a pathway forward to creating a new world, by allowing children to develop naturally, rather than “molding” them to accept the world in its current state and simply be a victim to events. I leave you with her words on this: Our world has been torn to pieces, and is in need of reconstruction…But humanity is not yet ready for the evolution that it desires so ardently, the construction of a peaceful and harmonious society that shall eliminate war. Men are not sufficiently educated to control events, so become their victims. Noble ideas, great sentiments have always found utterance, but wars have not ceased!

If education were to continue along the old lines of mere transmission of knowledge, the problem would be insolvable and there would be no hope for the world. Alone a scientific enquiry into human personality can lead us to salvation, and we have before us in the child a psychic entity, a social group of immense size, a veritable world-power if rightly used. If salvation and help are to come, it is from the child, for the child is the constructor of man, and so of society.

This may seem absurd but it becomes clear as the truth emerges that the

by Maura Joyce, Head of School

child has a type of mind that absorbs knowledge and thus instructs himself.

This is easily proved by the child’s acquisition of language—a great intellectual feat. The child of two speaks the language of his parents though none has taught him. All who have studied this phenomenon agree that a certain period of life the child begins to use names and words connecting with his environment and soon masters the use of all the irregularities and syntactical constructions that afterward prove such obstacles to adult students of an alien tongue. So within the child there is a very scrupulous and exacting teacher.

Scientific observation then has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.

The task of the teacher becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity spread over a specially prepared environment…. Human teachers can only help the great work that is being done as servants help the master. Doing so, they will be witnesses to the unfolding of the human soul into the rising of a new man who will not be the victim of events but will have the clarity of vision to direct and shape the future of human society. •

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THE POST

Pre-order Books for Your Family Plans are underway for Book Fair on Sunday, April 7. Before that, you have a chance to preorder books for your family from a curated list of recommendations by Post Oak faculty and staff. Every purchase you make helps the Post Oak Library! Pre-order forms are due to the front office by Monday, February 11.

• BECOME A FRIEND OF THE LIBRARY Friends of the Library is a financial support group for the library. All funds raised go to support the Post Oak Library and book collections on both campuses. You can become a Friend of the Library (FOL) by making a donation online. FOL contributors of $100 and more receive an exclusive T-shirt. Thank you, library friends! •

POPA Family Community Service Our service day at Books Between Kids in the fall went so well, we are heading back again this month! Books Between Kids is a non-profit organization founded in 2012 to serve Houston’s at-risk children by providing them with books to build their own home libraries.

Get the full details and sign up your family online! (Link is on our website’s POPA Community Service page.)

If you have any questions, please contact John Duboise at or .• Thank you to Post Oak family volunteers for coming out and making blankets at our January service day!

DATES

February 23, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Books Between Kids e! com o t e Mor

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Post Oak Board Brief FROM OUR BOAR D OF TRUSTEES WHY MY FAMILY CHOOSES POST OAK

by Whitney Walsh, Board Trustee In late January, I stood in baggage claim at Hobby Airport awaiting the return of my high school daughter from her J-Term trip to Jamaica. Alongside me were the familiar faces and feelings of Post Oak parents who had been equally missing their children over the past 10 days. We exchanged similar stories of understanding why our child did not have a cell phone on the trip. By admitting our own discomfort of not being able to reach them, we are experiencing the ongoing challenges of letting go. I feel connected to these parents, lean on them when I need support, and call them for advice. They have been on this Montessori Journey with me.

In many ways, deciding to embark on the Montessori way of learning with my children has been like exploring a new country. I had to leave my familiar framework of learning and traditional classroom expectations behind. Montessori required me to step off the highly congested freeway of traditional education and be willing to let nature and nurture guide us on “the road less traveled.” I look for signs of readiness in each of my children, rather than follow the turn signals of standardized education.

In some countries, drivers sit on the opposite side of the car, which can be confusing to the traveller. Montessori asks parents to sit in the back seat of their child’s educational experience and let the child drive their education. Many back seat drivers become frustrated, but those who allow themselves to enjoy the ride experience a different view of the process and develop a new trust in and appreciation for their child. Before our watchful eyes, the child is becoming more skilled and confident as they maneuver the potholes and sharp turns themselves.

The best way to learn about another country is to learn the language and immerse yourself in the culture. I have learned a new way to speak and listen to my children. I will always remember watching Susan Tracy, a former teacher in the infant community, get down on her knees to look eye to eye with the child she was addressing. When I would ask her eagerly how my child was doing, she would gently maneuver the conversation to let my child tell me, never speaking for the child as though she was not able to express herself.

Visits to the Primary classroom allowed my children to be the tour guides of their educational experiences. I could not direct their

learning. I had to sit awestruck as they used materials I did not recognize to teach concepts I humbly realized that I never had fully grasped in my own traditional education.

I once asked one of my children, “Who is the smartest person in your class?” recalling all of the charts with gold stars, academic award days, and the subconscious self-ranking I did daily in my traditional school.

I was met with thoughtful silence. It gave me a minute to answer my own question. Much like asking someone’s age, weight, or shoe size, I was asking for an arbitrary number to define a person’s value…out of habit. My children do not know how to do that nor does it cross their minds to want to. Instead, my children appreciate their own pace of learning, the power of diversely talented teams, and the peace of not being defined by numbers…especially someone else’s numbers.

As Middle School approached, so did the question of how long would we stay in this foreign education? Should we return to the standardized way of packaging and ensuring our child can “make it” in college? In many ways, it would be easier to fully embrace Montessori if the sounds and lights from the education freeway could not be heard. Each ambulance siren of “what college will they get into” or “are they getting enough math” can be jarring, tempting me to climb into the front seat to skillfully merge us back onto the familiar freeway. Ironically though, that’s when the real lesson of Montessori is taught to the parent.

In Jamaica, my daughter walked through the dense vegetation of a rainforest without a map, each step freshly created by a native Jamaican with a machete. She kept wondering “Where is the map?

Where is the path?” “What if we get lost?” At a rest stop, she studied the man leading them, obviously the most valuable member of their pack. She then realized that he didn’t need a map or a path nor did he fear getting lost, because he had a mastery of his environment based on his skills and experiences. He has a proven and tested internal compass and can forge his way. Montessori trusts a very young child to use a knife to prepare snack for themselves and their classmates.

Montessori gives a high schooler a metaphorical machete to clear their own obstacles, define their interests, and carve their own course.

Montessori gives me, as a parent, the sharp and pointed reminder to follow my capable and confident child, to get out of their way and enjoy this journey. •

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High School J-Term: Falmouth Field School

by Ren

, High School Student

ARCHAEOLOGY AT KENT The past four years, the Falmouth Field School in Jamaica has partnered with Dr. Ivor Conolley to work on excavations at Spanish Hill (Kent) located in the Trelawny parish. This small hill on the Kent farm may only appear to be a mere field with grazing cows and horses but much more lays hidden just a few feet below the surface of these beautiful rolling hills. The site was discovered by Dr. Conolley in 2004 after talking to a local farmer who told him of a story that had been passed down in his family for generations. He said that Arawaks, a group of indigenous people also known as the Taíno, used to live on the hill and that they would get drunk and fight. After hearing this, Dr. Conolley decided to look into the site and started excavating the hill in 2014 after finding evidence of Taíno presence. (Conolley) When excavating the Taíno sites, the most common artifacts found are the shells from marine bivalves and other shellfish

which they ate. The actual process itself involves opening up squared off units of ground and digging level by level using a trowel. The reason that we use trowels is because shoveling straight down could damage artifacts. While one person is digging, another usually takes the soil that had been dug up and sifts and sorts the artifacts. The classifications for the artifacts that we find are shells, pottery, bones, and lithics. This year we found an abundance of shells and chert. Chert is a sharp rock that the Taíno made tools and blades out of. These finds were classified as lithics, meaning a stone tool. We also found a few shards of pottery including a small piece of a rim and handle of a clay pot.

In 2016, students from the Falmouth Field School excavated a Taíno bowl. The students noticed the rim of the bowl while they were conducting a shovel test pit and slowly excavated the bowl using trowels until they were able to extract the bowl. This find was extraordinary considering that they were able to excavate a piece of pottery that was still almost completely intact. (Conolley) Another

impressive find made by Falmouth Field School students and Dr. Conolley in 2017 was part of a large Taíno cooking pot.

Although it was not completely intact it was still an impressive find considering the size and the preservation of the pot. Yet another important find that Dr. Conolley had excavated at this site in the summer of 2017 was a small piece of pearlware or whiteware. Since this artifact dates to the 19th century and originates from the British, it shows that the Taíno may

Goodbye Studio Nine | High School Senior Art Exhibit Reception: Thursday, February 28, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Art on view through March 7, 2019 Winter Street Studios, 2101 Winter St., Houston, TX 77007

continued on page 9

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HS J-Term In early February, students, families, and faculty filled the High School commons to hear the tales and travels from J-Term.

Students from each group presented what they experienced, explained why they would recommend the course, and took questions from the audience. The Art of Cooking students even brought some tasty goods to share with the crowd. We can’t wait for A-Term! •

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Congrats, Bearkats!

by Coach Sally Kruse The Middle School boys had a fantastic season; they improved significantly in their skill level as well as their ability to play as a cohesive team with great success. The boys played their championship match last Wednesday and won the game to become the TCSAAL Regional Champions. This was an amazing achievement for all. Credit must go to Coach Collins for his relentless hard work and dedication to the team The High School boys similarly had an outstanding basketball season. They also played a championship game last Wednesday and became the regional winners of the TCSAAL league.

There were many challenges faced, though all boys in the team gained valuable experience and their efforts were most definitely rewarded. Many thanks to Coach McBride, for his constant motivation and commitment to the boys! •

Coffee with the ELEMENTARY DIRECTOR

EL

Wed., Feb. 13 at 9 a.m. at the Bissonnet Campus

YCC Parent-Child Events Thurs., Feb. 14 YCC Parents are invited into the classroom with their children to see and experience their wonderful work.

Topic: Watch the weekly Post Highlights e-mail!

HDYCC: 10:30–11:30 a.m.

FDYCC: 4:00–5:00 p.m.

FEB RUA RY 2019

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High School J-Term: Falmouth Field School continued from page 6

have had contact with the British. This interaction likely took place after 1655 when the British took control over the island.

During the 2018 excavation at Spanish Hill, Dr. Conolley and students from the FFS found a feature which appeared to be a post hole of a Taíno house. The Taíno typically lived in circular huts called Bohios. These Bohios were supported by a central post with smaller posts surrounding the central one. The post hole which we found was that of a central post. More post holes have been found in previous years but we are not yet able to determine how large the village at Spanish Hill was. Although we don’t yet know how many Taíno lived on Spanish Hill, the sizes of their villages ranged from small

compounds to having inhabitants of up to three thousand people. This year, the goal of the excavation was to establish a better understanding and connection between the artifacts that had been found in previous years and where we know the Taíno houses and Bohios were located.

Specifically, Dr. Conolley was interested in establishing a connection between the location of where a spatula and a pipe were excavated and the location of the post hole.

Both of these artifacts were known to have been used by caciques who were the chiefs and leaders of the Taíno. The pipe was often used in religious ceremonies as paraphernalia for a hallucinogen called cohoba. This ceremony was typically carried out by caciques. Similarly, the spatula (also known as vomiting stick) was used by either caciques or a shaman in religious cleansing ceremonies to induce vomiting. Thus finding the location of

where the cacique resided would give us a lot of useful insight and context to the artifacts found in the area. Not long after starting a new unit, we hit a layer of marl (a rock similar to limestone) and noticed a distinct dark line of soil running through the white layer of rock. After recording this find, we decided to open up more units in the direction of the line to see how far the feature continued. The feature puzzled Dr. Conolley at first but as more and more of it was uncovered, he came to the conclusion that it was probably the siding of a Taíno house. He explained that there would have been many posts placed close together into a block of wood in the ground. Could this possibly have been the house of the cacique? Many questions and intriguing possibilities arise the further we dig. • [This article was edited for length.]

GALA AUCTION GOES LIVE ONLINE 2/20 Visit www.501auctions.com/casino_royale/ register to register and provide dietary restrictions.

GALA ATTENDEES If you are attending gala, physical tickets are not issued. Your name will be on a list at check-in.

Saturday, March 2, 2019 The Revaire | 6 p.m.

Gala Chairs: Jessica Gregg & Jordan Seff

PLEDGES DUE 3/2 All gala pledges for underwriting, tables, or individual tickets are due March 2.

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SCENES from The Post Oak School

FEB RUA RY 2019

FO L LOW U S O N FAC E B O O K & I N S TAG R A M FO R E V E N M O R E PH OTO S

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T NEXR! YE A

2019–2020

Important Dates Aug. 12

Faculty/staff return

Aug. 20

Fall term begins (see orientation calendar for start days per level)

Sept. 2

Labor Day— school closed

Oct. 14

In-service day—school closed

Nov. 27–29 Thanksgiving Break— school closed Dec. 20

Early dismissal

Dec. 23–Jan. 3 Winter Break— school closed Jan. 6

Teacher in-service— school closed

Jan. 20

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—school closed

Feb. 17

Presidents’ Day— school closed

March 16–20 Spring Break—only students with expandedyear contracts attend April 9

Teacher in-service— school closed

April 10

Good Friday— school closed

May 21

Last day for High School

May 22

Last day of school/ early dismissal

High School Commencement

N OT I C E B OA R D

HMI Open House Join us for an Open House on Feb. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Bissonnet Campus to learn more about the upcoming AMI Primary teacher training.

Feb. 8 Re-registration deadline for returning students Feb. 14 PRI: Expanded-year contract day Only Primary classes are not in session—all other levels (YCC, EL, MS, & HS) are in session.

Feb. 15 Teacher in-service Classes not in session: only students with expanded-year contracts attend

Feb. 18 Presidents’ Day School closed

To avoid the school’s e-mail communications arriving in your junk mail folder, please add info@postoakschool.org to your safe sender list or address book/contacts.

A BOU T TH E POST The Post appears every first Monday of the month during the regular school year.

You can receive a printed copy from your oldest child, or a PDF version online.

Submit letters, articles, or photos in electronic form to Communications Coordinator Elaine Schweizer (elaineschweizer@postoakschool.org) by 5:00 p.m. on the Monday one week prior to publication. Please direct all requests for permission to reprint articles to the communications coordinator.

The Post Oak School was founded in 1963 and accredited by both the International Baccalaureate® Programme (IBO) and the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS) Bissonnet Campus: 4600 Bissonnet St., Bellaire, TX 77401 ■ Tel.: 713-661-6688 ■ Fax: 713-661-4959 Museum District Campus: 1010 Autrey St., Houston, TX 77006 ■ Tel.: 832-538-1988 ■ Fax: 832-538-1926 www.postoakschool.org | facebook.com/postoakschool